September 27, 2010

It's a rarity for me to agree with anything the CHB writes, especially since I don't read most of it. What I do read is usually through osmosis on other blogs. But every once in a great, long while, he expresses a single idea which, completely separated from its context, I can agree with.

In the case of his particularly venomous columns over the last week, that single idea is that the first two wins of weekend's series with the Yankees shouldn't have gotten our hopes up.

Otherwise, I assure you, I wish I could send him to a tiny desert island far, far away where he could rant about Patriots and Red Sox ownership to a volleyball on a beach when he wasn't trying to figure out how to spear fish, and leave the rest of us who are just trying to enjoy sports alone.

Anyway, it's kind of hard to say I'm disappointed in the Sox losing last night (beyond being annoyed that it had to happen in such a dragged out, excruciating way), when I never expected them to even win this series to begin with. I definitely didn't expect Daisuke to come out and regulate the way he did for the first six or so innings. He came within a pitch of preserving the one-run lead the Red Sox' Strand-O-Matic offense left him with, and he even gave up an honest homer when he finally came unglued instead of walking fourteen guys and then giving up three doubles like he usually does. I'm ever more deeply concerned for Jonathan Papelbon's future with this team, but that's really nothing new this year.

It's easy to forget with a game like last night's still fresh, but this weekend still put that familiar choking feeling back into hearts and minds at Yankee Stadium, and kept our archenemies in second place, even if only for a while. In the grand scheme of things, I still think Terry Francona deserves recognition for the work he's been able to do with the scraps of team he's been left with most of this year (his decision to pitch Okajima in the 10th with Bard available notwithstanding), and the callups seem to be laying a foundation to build on next season. That's about the long and short of it at this point, and while last night may have made it official, it's been like that for a while.

What I can get well and truly pissy about, meanwhile, is the drivel that flowed from Joe Morgan's pie-hole during an otherwise exciting game, which was especially deplorable, even by Joe Morgan standards. I knew going in that he was going to be calling the game, and tried to steel myself accordingly, but I still thought my head was going to explode rather than take in any more of his babbling about how the Red Sox "gave up too early" when they started calling up minor leaguers over the last couple months. Instead, Morgan seemed to be of the opinion that the Red Sox should've traded them for somebody -- exactly who was never specified -- that could help them win this year, and he used this weekend as an example of why they should regret not having made such a move.

And so, apparently, in the candy-land of Morgan's mind, the Red Sox should've been able to anticipate the twisted maze of events that would bring them to this weekend in late September, in which they came in 5.5 games out, but still not mathematically eliminated, and should have, I don't know, pushed harder for another team to pull a "major league hitter" out of its ass just for them. Or something.

That's right. According to Joe, this lingering "chance" hasn't remained technically viable for the Red Sox because of solid play by callups while the Yankees have obligingly gone on a skid. No, clearly, if the front office had just traded all of them for a power hitter to be named later (and again, I ask, which ripe fruit, exactly, did the Red Sox leave dangling on some other team's vine this year, when it was there for the taking?), the team would be in much better shape right now to remain not-mathematically-eliminated, for perhaps another day or two!

Granted, I'm just a blogger. There's no way I could do color for a live game myself. But seriously, neither can Joe Morgan.

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